Fairfield Co. Weekly: The Woman In the Attic

Finding my birth mother wasn't about saving me from homework or unlocking the secrets of life.  It just seemed natural.

By Colleen Van Tassell

Most adopted kids have Janes. Imaginary birth mothers. They're the opposite of our moms. They let us eat candy for dinner and play ball in the house. I had one since I was 9. She lived in the attic. She protected me from the mean woman in the kitchen who yelled at me for not cleaning my room. She had no face. She wore sparkly pink shoes. I'd run away to her at least once a month.
But then the mean woman in the kitchen made cookies. As a kid it was all about escaping from the woman who made me wash behind my ears. About escaping a two-story cape on a cul-de-sac for a castle in the sky. To a woman who'd save me from mean kids and homework. But five months ago I searched for my Jane because it was time.

Adoption 101

My parents told me early on that I was "chosen" (every adoptee hears that) and "special" because they picked me over biological kids (that too). I came from something called a foundling hospital. I thought it was a place where they kept babies in display cases that rotated, like the ones in Grants department store, and grown-ups picked one and paid at the cash register. We had a set of bibles for "the adopted family." Except for some runny-nosed little shit (as my mother called her) cornering me on the playground screaming "you're adopted," we were the normal nuclear
disaster.

Life went on, tra la la. Communion wafers, la la la, eight-track tapes, la la la. Pretty much status quo except for birthdays. Everything came to a screeching halt on Feb. 9. Loved the bike, but is she thinking of me?

Thoughts of my birth mother became less idyllic and more practical when Pap smears became part of the picture. As a tyke, I knew I had something called cerebral palsy. That meant a) Buster Browns shoes and a brace and b) no gym. Later it was described as an "accident at birth." Gee, thanks for the car metaphor, but what happened in the delivery room? Was I dropped on my head? What? All I was told, from childhood to crabby adulthood, was: "Be thankful you're not in a wheelchair."

"Fuck you," I'd thought when I learned how to swear. "I would if I were Stephen fucking Hawking." I felt cheated and angry that I had no explanations, no medical history. Many adoptees feel like me, that we've been swindled, especially when
faced with filling out medical forms. Mother's and father's medical history? Blank. Diabetes? Uh, I don't know. Furry Black Tongue? Not sure. Just once I'd wanted to reply, "No, doctor, there are no shingles in my mother's family tree."

The Cape as Catalyst

"You need to have this in your life," Mary said, handing over a long, hooded black cape with a sterling silver clasp. "It belonged to a wonderful woman named Jane. She made this. We worked together in Manhattan years ago. She managed avant-garde artists, dancers, writers, directors. She ordered cases of wine every week, told fabulous stories, threw glorious parties. "She died walking down a New York street on the arm of one of her favorite friends," Mary said. "She died never having found the child she gave up for adoption."

Talk about an epiphany.

Most adoptees search after some big life change. A death, a marriage, the birth of a child. In my case, no funerals, no nosegays and no babies. Does searching because your friend gave you fabulous outerwear count? Jane wasn't the only reason, although I did, for a short time, believe Jane was my birth mother. If fantasy birth mothers were the opposite of our moms, Jane was it. I had no photo, no dates, no stats about Jane. Just images of a tall woman in a velvet sheath, awash in a flood of perfume, waving her clunky bracelets to Bach. She cussed, smoked in elevators, invited theater critics to dinner only to spread rumors about them later. She loved whores and deplored bores. Jane was the toast of New York, and I was the bubble in her flute.

Time out here. My mother (Julie) isn't bland. In fact, she used to drive nothing but sports cars and, at last count, owns 45 little black dresses. We didn't get into a mother/daughter hair-pulling fight that sent me off searching for my "real" mother. Jane was simply more cosmopolitan, more of a smartass. (Although, come to think of it, Julie told off TV evangelist Mother Angelica at a dinner party.)   I could see myself in her.

Jane, as it turns out, didn't give birth on Feb. 9, 1961. My friend told me a week later. But, after all the daydreaming and wondering, I decided -- rather, something compelled me -- to become part of an underground railroad of the lost and found. In the end I met four Janes. Women with moxie and verve. Finding my birth mother wasn't about saving me from homework or unlocking the secrets of life. It just seemed natural.

Not knowing where to start on my gumshoe adventure, I contacted (what else?) the Sally Jessy Raphael Show. After all, the show reunites 14 toothless mothers and daughter per week. They use a company called International Locator, 1-800-BIG-HUGS (I pressed a "J" instead of an "H" by mistake -- I got a lot of panting noises) and was referred to the $3.99-a-minute 1-900-388-HUGS advice line. When I finally called the correct number, a woman told me to 1) request my"non-identifying information" (information on the birth parents' background that doesn't reveal the names) from the New York Foundling Hospital, the agency that handled my adoption; and 2) go to the New York Public Library to match up the number on my birth certificate (it's
amended to list my adopted parents' names) with one listed in the Boroughs
Birth Index for 1961.

"New York's a tough state; too bad you weren't born in Connecticut. Good luck," she told me. "And remember -- don't tell clerks, librarians or anyone you come in contact with that you're searching for a birth mother. Use the term 'genealogical search.'"

She asked if I had any information at all about my birth mother.

I remember the foundling hospital told my parents that my birth parents were med students. (This "lineage" was privately called into question when I blew up my high school biology lab.) The women from the advice line warned me that sometimes certificate numbers are phony, too. Sometimes clerks were handed a sawbuck to change the seven to a one. In other words, the only thing real on our birth certificates is the ink.

I sent a letter to the Foundling requesting my "non-ID" and jumped on a train to New York, determined to match up my birth certficate with a name. What would it be? Astor? Rockefeller? Carnegie? I asked the librarian in the New York Public Library for the Boroughs Birth Index, and he handed it over with a huff. You'd think I'd asked him
for a foot rub.

I searched for hours, tediously checking names and numbers. Rows and rows and rows of tiny names and certificate numbers. I saw them in my sleep. Jones, Anne. Jones, Annette. Smith, Suzette. Then, on April 30, I received the letter. My entire body shook and I burst into tears reading the first line. Because until then, I knew nothing of my birth parents.

After I spewed the gooey Hallmark adoption tears to my co-workers, it occurred to me: I, spaz girl, was the product of a steak-neck teen and a jock mom.

Sister Sister

I felt the need to call the nun who sent me such a warm, caring letter. Every line was dripping with love: for me, for my birth mother and for my parents. A tiny voice answered.

"Well, Colleen, how have you been?" she said in a New York accent. It was as if I spoke to her last week. "And how are your parents, how is your dad? He was such a nice man."

She told me she was the caseworker for my adoption. And that even though she's "as old as Methuselah," she remembers "all her babies." And, despite her age, she remembers all the mothers. After chatting with her briefly I realized I had to meet her. She was the first and only connection I had to the woman in the attic.

Again I found myself on the train to New York. The day of the cab strike. My luck.

The Foundling is Sister Mary's home. She works in the archives now. She's short, with fluffy gray hair. She wore a business suit, hose and little pumps.

"Where's your habit?" I asked.

"Those things were hot as [whispered] hell," she laughed. "I'm not supposed to say the h-word 'cause, you know, I'm a nun." The Foundling no longer is a hospital or a home for unwed mothers. Rather, it provides services for disabled and underprivileged children. Mothers can also drop off their children if they feel overwhelmed. "We get a lot of that in the city," she said. "Now we see a lot of crack babies. Bad stuff, that crack."

Sister remembers a time when she and the other "sneaky" Sisters of Charity rerouted postcards and letters for unwed mothers so their families wouldn't know where they were. "Oooh, we're clever nuns," she said. She protected them and found homes for their babies. She drives her nun friends to the shore. In a station wagon. "Ooooh, I'm a queer one," she said. "Your birth mother's dad was a gem," she said. "He loved you both." He visited her every day. I remember that," Sister said. "How's your cerebral palsy?" she asked. "Does it get in your way?"

"I'm one of the lucky ones," I told Sister.

"Yeah, but it still must bother you," she said. I loved her for that.

I felt a weird connection to the Foundling. To the black & white photos of other adopted kids. Unlike me, some of them were dropped off in the middle of the night with notes pinned to their blankets: Take care of my baby. Find a good home. The nuns did. Sister Mary de Salles did.

Sister grabbed my face and kissed me good-bye. "I hope you find her, my dear," she told me. "You have her smile." She blew a kiss. I wondered what tipped her off. How she knew that I wanted to find my birth mother. She knew I was there to shake her down for clues. She was nothing like the nuns I had in school. She had moxie. And verve. And pumps.

Don't Call Me Asser

A couple of months passed and I got a tip (I can't tell how) that a) my birth mother lived on Long Island, b) her last name began with an A and c) my paternal grandfather was a police chief. So I went back to the New York Public Library. I found names that were close (but not exact) matches to my certificate number -- Karen Asser and Alison Adler. Do I look like a Karen or an Alison, I'd asked my friends. No, but you look like an Ass-er, they replied.

Then, I did what any modern gumshoe would do: plugged into the Internet and fibbed.

Every day over the summer I had a new identity. I found Assers in Northport and Archers in Belmore. I called Adlers and Aronsons and Abes. I called libraries and newspapers. I joined every adoption reunion registry in the country and in cyberspace. I lied to every Catholic school librarian from Mineola to Southampton, trying to scam information on swim teams and football heros in 1960.

My cubicle was filled with faxes and newspaper clippings of retired cops. "Who are you today?" a co-worker would ask. "Sarah Archer," I replied. Out of desperation, I called a local investigator for advice. "I gotta friend," he said with a flatfoot hush. " Here's his number." He put me in touch with Mr. C, a retired police commissioner on Long Island.  He offered to help, no questions asked. I gave him all the information I knew. We came up with a name. I sent a letter. Some retired cop in Florida thinks his son may have an illegit daughter in Connecticut.

"Who are you today?" a co-worker asked. "Sheila Arthur." Office bets had me the illegitimate daughter of Al D'Amato or the love child of Bea Arthur and Ed Koch.
Weeks passed and nothing. No breaks, no clues. I was tired. I knew how it must feel for people who devote years to this. Some adoptees have even less to go on. I felt inept. It was a hot Sunday in September when my break finally came.

The French Bread Connection

I almost didn't go to the backyard party in West Haven. I was cranky and overheated and not in the mood. At the last minute, the thought of free food made me go.

A woman with Dairy Queen-high curly hair approached me and said she'd heard that I was searching for my birth mother. She wore a leopard print dress and dropped her r's like any gal worth her salt from Queens. Diane was no ordinary guest at the party. She was a relative. She suggested we go for a smoke.

She was at the party with her birth father, whom she'd found only months before. She's attended every family function since they reunited. Unlike her birth mother, her birth father accepted her into his family. She got a tip (wink wink) that her birth father had played basketball for Quinnipiac College. She had no name.

She, too, made a crossing on the Long Island ferry, only to Connecticut. She found herself in Quinnipiac's library going through old yearbooks. She fixated on a face. "That's him," she told her friend.  "Number 23."

Her friend told her she was out of her freakin' mind.

"No, it's number 23. I know it."

"OK, I'll make a couple of calls," her friend said.

Within 30 minutes she was in number 23's living room. He was her birth father.
"These are pictures of your brothers and sister," he said.  

So that's my story; what's yours, she asked. I told her I was adopted from the Foundling. "Ah, good ole Sistah Mary de Salles," Diane said.

"Holy shit," I replied. "What a coincidence." I told her how I'd hit a brick wall in my investigations.

"You need to talk to Pam," she said. "She's the reason I'm here. She's a private investigator and a friend." Here's her e-mail address.

The next day, I received a message: Hi, I'm Pam. Call me at (516) 476-0362.

The Case of Mary and the Pink Sofa

"OK, here's the deal," Pam said in her Long Island accent. "I'll help you but you've got to promise me one thing You gotta call me a freakin' goddess in this article."

Her name is Slaton. Goddess Pam Slaton.

I told her my clues: the police link, the "A" name, the Foundling. "Ah, good old Sistah Mary. What a nut that one is. I try to shake her down at least once a week. She won't freakin' budge."

Pam told me how her birth mother turned out to be "the kiss of death." She asked if I was ready for what was to come. "'Cause," she said, "a private investigator is the real deal. We work fast. You could be talking to your birth mother on the phone in a matter of days." More important, she warned, "You never know who might be on the other end of the phone."

She works for Priority One, a licensed and bonded private investigation firm in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. "I'm just a Long Island housewife who solves mysteries," she says. "With a freakin' Dirt Devil in one hand and a cell phone in the other."

She has a pink leather sofa. She's a broad's broad.

She had a lot of cases that week, but on Thursday she called and invited me to the Hamptons. "Every so often a bunch of us loser adoptees pile our fat asses into our cars and spend the weekend complaining about being adopted. You might call it a support group.

"C'mon, get your ass on the Long Island ferry," she said. "It'll be a freakin' riot."

Synopsis of support group: "Adoptees are insecure idiots," Pam said. "We can't take rejection. We cringe on our freakin' birthdays. Basically, most of us are screwed up. Done. Anybody for a mudslide?"

I interviewed Pam about how she cracks cases, how she does it. "Eh, I got a lot a rackets," she said. "You don't need to know how I do it, if ya know what I mean. I got ways."

Before I left that Sunday, Pam told me she was starting my case on Monday.

I found out on Tuesday morning that I was named Mary.  Mary Aicher.

Pam told me over the phone. "She loved you," Pam said.  "She gave you a name."

"Are you OK?" she asked.

I said yes but I wasn't sure. I kept saying the name over and over. I didn't feel like a Mary Aicher. "Do I look like Mary Aicher?" I asked a friend. "No, you look like Mary Ass-er."

I made the announcement from my cubicle, my own private Ellis Island, where every day, my desk sank under what felt like ship manifests of German and Irish names.

"I'm freakin' Mary Aicher."

I called Pam to find out how she got the name and my birth certificate number when I couldn't. "I got ways," she said. It was there; I just didn't see it, she scolded. I think she called me a moron for missing it in the birth index, twice.

On Tuesday, around 5 p.m., Pam called again. "I think I found her," she said. "Stay by the phone."

I wasn't prepared. Fuck the cape, I thought. I was afraid she'd reject me. I was terrified she'd be one of those icky Sally show guests, I was afraid I wouldn't know what to say to her, I was afraid I was betraying my mother.

If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Birth Mother

At 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 1, a phone dropped in a kitchen in New Hampshire.

A woman took a call from her cousin.  He asked if Feb. 9, 1961, meant anything to her.

"Mary," she replied.

At 6 p.m. on Thursday evening, a phone dropped at the New Haven Advocate.

A birth daughter took a call from her private investigator. "Her name is Michaele.  I spoke to her cousin, who confirmed everything."

Thirty-seven years of wondering and dreaming wiped out in one sentence. I turned to my co-workers and tried to get out the words. I couldn't speak. Instead I scribbled a message on the back of my non-ID:

She's been looking for me for 10 years.

I was free. From librarians and numbers and dates and cop names and phone calls and my own mystery novel. I was free from Asser jokes.

So Are Ya Cute?

My phone rang at about 6:20 on Friday night, Oct 2. I held on tight to the receiver.

"Hello, my name is Michaele," she said. "So, how've you been?"

I wasn't blown away by the gravity of speaking to my Jane, my attic savior, by years of bewilderment. I was blown away that my birth mother sounded like Fran Drescher. My birth mother was the freakin' Nanny.

"So, are ya cute?" she asked. "Your birth father was a dish. His name is Billy. We did it on my parents' bed.  It was the first time."

She named me Mary after a girl she knew who ice skated and was athletic and smart. Ha, I said. I told her about my athletic deficiencies. My birth was easy, she said. No complications. "Are you OK with the cerebral palsy?"

"I'm lucky," I said.

"Still it must suck," she said.

I adored her for that.

I told her I like clothes and food and cats and red wine and hats and New York and room service and food and cats and cussing and smoking and food.

"Cut out the damn smoking," she said. "Your birth grandmother died of throat cancer. Camels. " Her name was Fuz, she said.

"My grandmother died of emphysema. Lucky Strikes," I said. Her name was Julia, I said.

She said that if I ended up being a nerd, her friend Joan would be my birth mother and if I was a religious fanatic, she'd pitch me to her friend Susanne. She watched the Sally show reunions in horror, too.

"Well it's no wonder you like food and clothes," she said. "My father took me to French restaurants and Lord & Taylor and Saks when I was pregnant with you at the Guild of the Infant Holy Mary Mother of Most Precious Blood. He didn't care about being seen with his pregnant daughter," she said. Her father, Michael, worked in the beer industry. "He was good friends with Rudy Schaefer," she laughed.

I told her how, on the trip home from the Foundling, my parents stopped off at Murphy's Bar to show me off to friends. A seminarian sprinkled beer on my forehead and welcomed me home. "See, our lives intersect, even with beer."

Michaele asked about my mother. She remembered seeing Mom's shoes under a
door the day she gave me up at the Foundling Hospital. Older ladies' shoes, she remembered. Dark and pointy. The shoes of a good mother, she hoped.

"I love to cook," she said.

"I hate to cook," I said.

"And I swear," she said.

I thanked my fucking stars.

I told her about the non-ID letter, how I carried it everywhere, how it was the only thing I had of her.

"God, that sounds familiar," she said. "I carried your photo around in my wallet. Until it was stolen out of my car. I was 26. It was a Polaroid of my Mary. My father took it of you the day before he handed you over to the Foundling," she said. She was heartbroken.

Neither Michaele nor Mom remembers the paperwork at the Foundling agency or the social workers. Hellos and good-byes is all. "I was heartbroken," Michaele said, simultaneously informing me that she led cheers in her sixth month and hid me with girdles. "Those things were made to hide Catholic girl pregnancies," she said. "Not flab."

After a nature/nurture rant (where we determined that I get my procrastination and poor organizational skills from her and my poor cooking skills from my mother) she said, "So you wanna come up?"

"I'll be there tomorrow," I said.

"You know," she said, "you have my soul."

Home Sweet Homes

I spotted the tiny white balloon, my signal to turn off the highway and into Michaele's driveway. I felt elated, scared, sick to my stomach. I also hoped I wouldn't plow into several cute birdhouses on the grounds.

She walked out of her garden and threw open her arms. "Welcome," she said. "Were my directions OK?"

She poured me a glass of red wine. "So do you want to see a picture of your birth father?" She handed me a prom photo. "We went together for three years. I loved him, the big dope. I'm going to call him about you but I need some time."

"No rush," I told her.

We compared noses, hands. She had my body 40 pounds ago.  She's preppy, the
house is preppy, even the dog is preppy. "Martha Stewart is an amateur compared to me," she said.

"I hope Martha Stewart gets rubbed out by the Mob," I replied.  

Michaele's earthy and wears no make-up. She waves a spatula to her favorite CD: Natalie Merchant. "This song reminds me of Dad," she said. "We had so many great moments because of you."

She showed me photos of her five children. They're preppy and athletic. I felt like Patsy from Ab Fab at the Kennedy compound. I hoped I still had my L.L. Bean catalogue.

She studied my baby pictures, meticulously arranged in albums by my mother, complete with dates and captions. First steps. First Halloween. First day of school. First bath.

"You look like Billy in this one," Michaele said. My dad's name is Bill, I replied. "Your parents did a splendid job," Michaele said. We caught each other staring. A glance by the stove, a peek over the dog. To see a bit of our selves in each other. "My father was a saint," she said. "Just before he died we said a prayer for our Mary, that someday I'd find you." 

"He died," she said, "one month to the day before I got the call about you."

I met two of her daughters. I was terrified that they'd resent me. Turns out they knew about me for years. They were warm and funny and pregnant.  Michaele prepared her children years ago, should she find me. She signed up with adoption registries that kept asking her for money. She had no more money. But she never gave up hope.

"I had to do it," she said. "Do you hate me for that?"

No, I said.  But what happened to Billy?

"I broke up with him in college for the man I married."

We both checked divorced in the "similarities" category. We both went to all-women's Catholic colleges, we both can't finish books. We have the same shoe size.

"I like house cleaning," I said.

"You must get that from your mother," she said.

She sent me off with doggie bags. She grabbed my face and kissed me." You're a writer," she said. "Start writing. Tell the world our story.

"And call me to let me know you got home OK!"

I returned to New Hampshire, to the big red preppy house.  I've met her cousin Jack, neighbors and friends and Susanne, another broad's broad (who, by the way was in Joey Heatherton's wedding), Michaele's best friend since third grade. I've received e-mails and postcards and notes welcoming me into the family. I received phone calls from friends wanting to see the photos of us. I've received sappy birth mother poems and lyrics to "Wind Beneath My Wings." And I tried on Jane's cape. It still fits.

I now know this was meant to be. I was destined to meet Sister, who remembers all of her babies; Diane at a backyard party; Pam, just a Long Island housewife; and Michaele, the women who shares my smile and hands. We know who brought us together.

Our father who art in heaven.

Copyright ©1999 New Mass. Media, Inc. All rights reserved.